


Double Time (On the Seduction Line)

by 1shinymess (magpie4shinies)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, and nothing happens, but they shake it off quickly, in that there are people briefly affected by an outside influence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 12:04:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie4shinies/pseuds/1shinymess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn't have an issue with Gabriel, just like there isn't something weird going on with him, Love Potion #9 style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part one: Sam's POV

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://raths-kitten.livejournal.com/1132967.html)   
> 

Sam twisted the cap off of the tank and glanced toward the station where Dean was supposed to be buying snacks and paying for gas. His brother was standing at the glass wall that made of the storefront, holding up a box of Slim Jims with a wide smile. 

Sam frowned and jerked his head toward the front of the store. Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to the snack aisle. Sam sighed. 

He was actually grateful to see his brother behaving normally. After Dean had banished Castiel and Gabe from their hotel room last week – completely taking Castiel by surprise, since he'd been reading the symptoms of their most recent supernatural affliction, trying to help Sam narrow down the possibilities – and Sam had stormed out after coming within a hair of shouting at Dean himself, things had been...tense. He was glad to see moody Dean had inexplicably eased off. 

_Thank god,_ he thought, remembering his frantic call to Cas, who'd ended up seventy miles southeast, and joined Sam at the closest bar. 

At least Dean seemed finished with the snacks: Sam watched him approach the counter with one arm full – Slim Jims included – and empty it out for the clerk to scan.

Speaking of...Sam snorted. She was obviously young – maybe over 18, but not by much – with dark, wildly curly hair loose around her head, though that was about all Sam could really make out. She seemed vaguely familiar, and Sam observed Dean flipping through his wallet before smiling and sliding over his card. Sam caught a glimpse of a smile on her face and realized she looked a lot like the girl Dean had introduced him to, years ago...Cassie? Maybe a bit younger, but...

Apparently, that was still Dean's type, if Sam was reading him right through the glass. He was definitely flirting. Sam watched him walk out of the station wearing a smirk, plastic bag hanging from a wrist. 

“You’re in a better mood,” Sam said slowly, flipping the handle on the pump and inserting the nozzle into the tank. 

Dean shrugged. “Aw, Sammy…what can I say? I’m having a good day.”

That was the beginning.

The bar was actually well-lit for a change. It was a combination restaurant that seemed perfect for the weird little college town they were in: the small menu posted on the sandwich board listed gourmet pizza and pasta dishes next to cheeseburgers, with the latter half of the board all beer.

Sam immediately swept the room while Dean did the same beside him. There was a small crowd, but it was early on a Thursday, so that might have be normal. There were booths and tables: and Sam spared a brief burst of thanks upward when he saw bar tables that were high enough for him to sit comfortably. Dean snorted beside him, nudging him with his elbow and smirking like he didn't get frustrated always having to slouch in places like this that _didn't_ shell out the money. 

One of the open bar tables was in the back, only a few meters from the kitchen if they needed to duck somewhere and hide, or try escaping from the possibly-theoretical back of the bar.

The nearest patrons were a couple of kids, both boys wearing broken in jeans and apparently uninterested in them. _Blond is 5'7 with a dark tan,_ Sam noted, eyes quickly picking out distinguishing marks. _Tribal tattoo (hopefully fake) on the left bicep._

The other kid had that in-between colored hair sometimes called dirty-blond. A very light brown, maybe. _Pale...burn scar on his right forearm._

Sam heads toward the table he's decided on tonight with some vindication. He'd listened to Dean bitching about carrying the laptop around even though he hadn't lifted a finger on it, and now Sam was going to be able to keep researching that potential hunt he'd found in Louisville. 

“Go on, say it,” Dean muttered. “I know you're dying to.”

Sam looked at him with a small, curious quirk of his brow, and casually set the laptop on the table. “What do you mean?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Like I suddenly have brain damage and don't remember the last 27 years of my life.”

Sam smiled and unzipped the case. “There's nothing sudden about your brain damage.”

Dean's eyes narrowed to faint green slits. “Yeah, and its name is Sammy, and it's struggling really hard right now not to say _I told you so_.” 

Sam's mild expression cracked briefly, a smirk pulling at him before he smoothed it over. “Cute.”

Dean dropped his jacket on the chair facing away from the back wall and turned, knocking into the table deliberately. “I'm gonna go grab a couple beers and a menu. You want Miller Light, right? Cause it's healthier? Got it.”

Sam scowled at his back. “I do not – Dean! Don't get me that crap! I won't drink it!”

Dean waved lazily over his shoulder and Sam took a deep breath and reminded himself that he couldn't actually get mad at his brother for another week. It was his self-imposed exile after The Incident, and though he might have been willing to break it, Cas had taken it onto himself to play enforcer for the both of them.

Two men stood at their end of the bar, leaving Dean with just enough space to lean in comfortably and chat up the bartender. One was wearing slacks and a partially unbuttoned oxford shirt. Though that was the style in some places, Sam was willing to bet money that the faint lump in the pocket was a tie. He had short red hair and pale skin, freckled lightly but all of the spots almost completely faded to a distant shadow of color. 

The man beside him, standing so he was angled in toward the red-head, was taller and had broad shoulders. Sam estimated him to be about on par, height-wise, with Dean. His hair was dark enough to be a natural black, maybe. He was wearing a plaid button-up t-shirt and jeans. They both glanced up with Dean approached, and Sam sighed as he saw the quick up-down-up of someone catching sight of his brother for the first time.

The dark-haired guy was a little more obvious than his companion, turning almost completely around after he saw the first flash of Dean's green eyes.

 _Ouch_ , Sam thought with a wince, tapping the power key on his laptop. And they had the bad luck to run into Dean. _Shitty luck._

Sam looked at his screen and typed his password. The OS finished waking up from its hibernation and he restored Chrome, reviewing the obits for the area including Louisville. They probably had a Munchhausen-style poltergeist taking out kids over the last decade, one a year during September except this last time, there'd been two in a month. The second boy had died three days ago and the obituary was posted yesterday. It had struck a reporter, who wrote an article on the town's tragic history, mentioning the string of boys who'd died within the last five years. She hadn't gone back further, but Sam knew exactly what to look for and had found the rough pattern.

It was strange that it wasn't the same day – usually with ghosts this violent, there was a strict pathology. Dean came back with the beers and a map tucked under his arm as Sam was finishing downloading electronic copies of the back-issues referring to the attacks, and every issue from that month the year prior to the first kid's death. It was the work of carefully honed instincts and keen timing that had him lean forward before Dean could swipe one of the cold, damp bottles over the back of his neck. “We've definitely got a case.”

“Awesome,” Dean said, taking his defeat with a childish side of the beer over the table. Sam caught it without looking up and took a long pull as he scanned the second issue from September 2000. “I can see why nobody picked up the trail before: the deaths aren't on the same days, not in the same place...hell, the kids are all different ages, ethnicity...if the paper hadn't run that article on the similarities, I probably wouldn't have caught it. 

“Hm...” 

Sam looked up and met Dean's eyes over the drooping edge of the laminated menu. “What?”

Dean shrugged. “I don't know, it's weird. Why so many differences? Location, if nothing else. What ties them together? How's the ghost getting in?”

Sam shrugged. “I might stumble over something in here. I'm reviewing the issues from that month the year before, but it's slow going.”

Dean cocked his head. “Ehh...”

“What?” Sam repeated. “Seriously, just come out and say it.”

Dean winced and then, as though he was being tortured, laboriously he said, “When has it ever been that easy?”

Sam sighed.

“ _What the hell?!_ ” 

Sam tensed, turning in his seat so look back at the bar. The black-haired man had a hand on the red-head's arm, leaning in but looking to the side to check who was watching. He spoke quietly for a moment, and seemed like he might be getting through to the other man, but then his eyes flickered back toward their table and with that, the red-head's patience was apparently gone. 

“... _not enough_? ...touch me!” Sam cursed his training as he automaticaly strove to catch and decipher all of the mumbled speech. “Nobody is THAT attractive!”

Dean flinched and Sam glanced his way, but the sound of wood being forced over wood drew his attention back to the drama at the bar.

The argument continued, but not quite loud enough for Sam to make out any of the words immediately following. 

Sam just barely caught the red-head splash his drink in the other man's face.

“No! Jesus Christ, Aaron!” Sam leaned forward, shoulders tensing as the black-haired man, Jake, grabbed...Aaron? 

“Trouble in paradise,” Dean murmured, but Sam could see him watching the show from the corner of his eye.

For a minute, the tension grew and the bartender, rough as she was, watched the couple from the middle of the bar. Sam really thought there was going to be a fight, which (knowing their luck, and considering Dean's last blowout with Gabriel) would damage their laptop and probably land one of them unconscious. 

Thankfully, the fist unclenched without immediately reforming for a punch, and the beer-drenched man stormed out of the bar. The redhead immediately headed toward the other back corner, pulling a phone out of his pocket. Sam was surprised to catch a glare toward their table as he passed them. 

Dean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel about thirty minutes outside of Louisville. “What IDs haven't been burned...” 

Sam blinked, the words penetrating the landscape-induced coma enough to motivate movement. He popped open the glove box and pulled out the short supply of wallets, each supplied with surface-quality fake identities. “Uh...Ben Deerborn and...Leonard Halen for you. Really? I've got...aw, seriously Dean?”

Dean's mouth twitched before he could control it. “What's wrong?”

“ _Susan Cash_?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You can go by the middle name.”

“Brad isn't that much better, _Dean._ ”

Dean huffed. “God, you're such a whiner. Use the other one, then.”

“I'm almost afraid to look...” Sam muttered, eying Dean for a moment before flipping it open. “Frank Castle?” He hesitated a long moment, eyes following the mile markers outside of the window as they closed in on their exit, trying to find the trap, then shrugged. “OK.”

Dean looked over expectantly and Sam cocked his head. Dean arched his eyebrows. “ _Really_ , Sam?”

Sam frowned. “ _What?_ ”

“Frank Castle? The Punisher? Come on, baby brother, you're killing me here...”

Sam rolled his eyes and deliberately turned toward the window. They were coming up on exit ?, a few away from their ultimate destination, and he saw a sign for a rest stop and (more importantly for his growling stomach) a Waffle House. “Take this exit.”

“Really?” Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. “I'm hungry and we need to figure out our cover story. I'd like to do it before we get to the motel this time.”

“Sure,” Dean muttered, flipping the blinker and shifting lanes. 

“What?” Sam asked, frowning.

Dean checked the rear-view and took the exit, immediately slowing to the posted speed limit and using the reduced speed to give Sam's gut a deliberate look. “I don't think they do salads, Sammy.”

Sam snorted. “I can handle an egg plate every now and then, Dean. Just because I'm trying to be conscientious...”

Dean glanced toward him and then back to the road. 

“What?”

“Gonna want to watch the hash-browns, is all I'm saying.”

Sam lost all expression. “I'm not getting fat, Dean.”

Dean hummed in agreement. “I'm just saying, let's keep it that way, OK?”

 _Three more days,_ Sam reminded himself. _Three more and you can call him a pig-headed jerk-ass who wouldn't know tact if it beat him unconscious._ “Just. Drive.”

Dean smirked. “Yes, sir.”

The Waffle House lived up to its archetype: the plastic yellow roof over the brick siding and an inside with grease heavy enough in the air that Sam could practically taste it. Despite his better nature, he found his mouth watering for the biggest pile of grease soaked hasbrowns loaded with cheese, jalapenos ham and anything else they had in stock.

They took the booth at the left side of the restaurant, tucked into the corner. Traditionally unpopular because of its proximity to the restrooms, it was their typical go-to at Waffle Houses around the country for the protection afforded their line of sight: they could usually see the roads into the Waffle House, but couldn't be snuck up on. 

Ordering was quick and Sam regretfully watched the waitress walk off with his order on the pad, sadly lacking the hasbrowns he really wanted. Giggling caught his attention and he realized the two women at the end of the bar were a) twins, and b) staring at them. 

No, at _Dean_. 

“Seriously?” Sam muttered, and Dean looked up from where he was absently turning a scrunched-up straw wrapper into a “water snake” by treating the straw as an eyedropper and soaking the table.

Sam bit down on the instinctive urge to chide and smiled faintly at the waittress who just shrugged. 

“You used to love paper snakes,” Dean said, looking up at Sam with a soft smile.

Sam's own ire faded and he tried to wipe the irritation from his face as quickly as the look on Dean's face had drained it from his chest, but it was too late. Dean grabbed a few napkins and dropped them onto the small puddle he'd made, crushing the snake, then scrunched them into a slightly-sodden pile and pushed it to the side. 

Sam sighed. “Dean--”

Dean stood. “I'm gonna go take a leak.”

Sam let him go, feeling like shit and trying to get angry about it so he didn't feel quite so much like an asshole. They were both stressed out, yeah, and Dean was still a little tetchy about Ben and Lisa, but every now and then, he'd get that look on his face like he was remembering good things. He'd been almost nice the last time Sam had caught it. When he looked like that, the only emotion on his face all genuine and none of his smoke and mirrors bullshit, Sam could almost see what would bring so many people to take him home, knowing he wouldn't be there in the morning.

The scent of perfume – strong enough to be noticed without being too close – distracted him from his internal whinging for a moment, and then the food was there. He debated waiting, but figured Dean would both tease him and steal some of his food if he did, and lifted his grilled chicken sandwich.

He was focused, but not so focused that he didn't hear the thud of something impacting the drywall behind him and he looked back behind him into the hallway with the restrooms. There was no sign of movement for a minute, and he started to return to his food when the door to the men's room burst open and Dean lunged through the gap.

Sam was half out of the booth immediately, adrenalin pumping at the wide-eyed panic on Dean's face, eyes drawn to the smear of red on his jaw and neck. “Dean! What's wrong?”

Dean shoved past him into the booth and pulled Sam in behind him, almost cringing as he hissed at Sam to “ _sit down!_ ” 

Since he was also tugging Sam directly back and slouching down, Sam had no choice but to sit down or fall into their food. He sat and turned his head. With more than a paniced moment to observe, it was obvious that the red on Dean's jaw was lipstick, which meant the red on his neck was likely more of the same. “What the hell, Dean?” 

Dean peered behind Sam's head toward the hall. “Man, I don't know! Those two chicks just jumped me!”

Sam blinked. “They jumped you.”

Dean scowled. “Yes, Sam, _they jumped me_.”

Sam eyed his lipstick-smeared jaw and arched an eyebrow. “Is this the same kind of jumping that occurred in 'Major Bang: Basic Training'?”

Dean huffed, breath damp and gross on Sam's shoulder as he cringed back down. “I'm serious, Sam! I don't think they were...you know, all there.”

Sam tilted his head. “I've been saying that about the people you pick up for years--”

“Shut up, shut up!” Dean hissed, and Sam realized he could smell the perfume again. 

The two brunettes walked past their booth with barely a look at Sam before their eyes slid to Dean, and Sam felt some of his amusement fade. That was definitely a predatory expression, one he was more used to seeing on the things they hunted. 

He turned his head back to Dean and arched his eyebrows, nodding at them quickly. Dean shook his head, then hesitated and shrugged.

“Great,” Sam whispered, then raised his head and stared at their waitress until she looked up and mouthed _box?_ and gestured outside. She nodded, eyes moving between the girls and their table curiously even as she separated two of the styrofoam boxes from the stack and handed over the check. Sam let Dean pay and wasn't surprised when he chose to drop cash rather than cross by the girls. When Sam glanced back at them, he blinked. Whatever had pinged his instincts before, whatever had registered as a threat, it was gone now. 

“Sam!” Dean slapped at his shoulder and headed out the door. 

Sam waited until they were safely in the Impala before turning to Dean. “Old girlfriends?”

“I've never seen them a day in my life,” Dean said, leaning forward against the steering wheel briefly. “Cas would tell me if...”

Sam waited for a few seconds, but Dean only leaned back and started the car. “If what?”

“If Gabriel had...”

Sam almost froze, which would've been a dead giveaway that he knew something, but thankfully his vast prank-war won experience paid off. “What exactly happened in the bathroom?”

“I don't want to talk about it,” Dean muttered, staring straight ahead. One hand lifted off of the steering wheel to rub his shoulder.

“Uhh...”

“Drop it.”

Thirty minutes later, Dean's silence finally cracked. “There was something seriously wrong, Sam. I'm not going to say I've never had that affect on someone before – believe me, Cassie was...well, anyway – but those girls? There was something weird there. They pinged, Sammy. It was crazy. They just... _attacked_.”

Sam blinked. “Those girls? You mean from the diner?”

“Yeah, man!” Dean said, voice rising. “One minute, I was trying to tell them they had the wrong place – you do NOT want to deal with a woman who thinks _you're_ the pervert in the ladies' room – and the next, one was lunging for my mouth and the other was latched so tight to my neck. I thought she was a damn vampire for half a second!”

Sam bit his lip. _Don't laugh, don't laugh..._

After a moment, Dean looked to the right and then scowled. “It isn't funny, Sam! One of them had her hands down my pants and I was a heartbeat away from staking first before I caught myself. And not in the fun way, if you catch my drift.”

That actually sounded legitimate, but didn't completely kill the amusement Sam was feeling. It was like all of Dean's adolescent fantasies about twins (or sisters, at least) had come true, and he'd realized the old adage about wishes was true. “Of course.”

Dean glanced back with narrowed eyes, but seemed to accept Sam's sincerity as genuine and his shoulders relaxed faintly as he got them to the light that would allow them onto the on-ramp for the interstate. “They seemed almost possessed, Sam.”

Sam thought about that, and the discomfort he'd felt when they'd passed and frowned. “Did they smell like blood? Were their eyes glassy? Or maybe they went white?”

“No...” Dean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, and then the light was changing and the Impala shot forward. 

The rest of the amusement faded away at the obvious sign of Dean's lingering unease. “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Anything that could explain the feeling?”

Dean seemed a little easier on the road, at least. “I don't know! There was nothing that should've come across as dangerous. Maybe a little sexy-dangerous, but it isn't like they were stronger than they should've been, or faster...there were no tattoos, they didn't try to bite-bite me...”

“I'll see if I can find anything,” Sam muttered, but he knew Dean could read the doubt in his tone. There was nothing to work from, really.

Dean snorted. “You know, if it was that asshole –”

Sam sighed. “Not this again –”

“He's a wild-card, Sam! You know he's just as likely to screw us over! We lucked out with Lucifer being bugfuck crazy. Raphael? He's got most of his marbles still, aside from the whole 'Apocalypse Now' thing. And he's Gabriel's _brother_.”

Sam interrupted. “ _So's Cas,_ and he likes Cas better.” Dean's jaw was tight even though he didn't say anything and Sam groaned. “You have _got_ to let that go! He's proven himself.”

Dean frowned at the stretch of road in front of them, miles disappearing beneath the Impala's tires without easing his temper the slightest. 

Sam rolled his eyes. “This isn't about not trusting him in the fight, is it? It's about two weeks ago.” Dean hunched forward defensively but didn't deny it and Sam sighed. “You can't keep picking fights with him, Dean. He's an archangel who lived as a trickster for a millennium. He's going to win.”

Dean's grip on the steering wheel tightened to the point that veins of white were trickling down from his knuckles. “Just because we're allies in The Apocalypse: Mark II doesn't mean I'm going to just let him walk all over us, Sam!”

“You're being childish, Dean. It has to stop. I thought you liked him? One day you think he's a monster, and you're kindred spirits – then you find out he's an angel and you can't let it go? It's getting old, Dean. One day, Gabriel really will get back at you, and it won't be something like two women throwing themselves at you!”

“He doesn't get to talk about you!”

Sam froze for a long minute before his brain ticked back into functioning. “ _What?_ ”

Dean swallowed, rolling his wrists. “Nothing.”

“What did he say about me?” Sam asked again.

Dean looked at Sam reluctantly, and Sam could see his resistance crumble. “It doesn't matter. Nothing new. It's all our fault, you know? And I just. He lost Lucifer, let him go – and you know, I get it. I understand how hard that whole situation was. I lived the compressed version of it. Maybe the first round was on us, but this? This is all on the angels. This one's not our fault.”

“You mean, not _my_ fault,” Sam corrected, and Dean's head jerked down once in an erstwhile nod. “He said...this was my fault?”

Dean reached over without looking away from the road in front of them and grabbed Sam's arm. “He didn't mean it. We talked it out after you and Cas left, last time.”

Sam frowned. “He got back inside with the Sigils up?”

Dean shrugged, patting Sam once more and leaning back into the seat. “Trickster, man.”

“Right.” Sam sighed, drumming his fingers on the dashboard. “Did...anything else happen after we left?”

Dean glanced his way quickly, then returned his eyes to the road. “Not really. Like what?”

Sam shrugged. “Nothing. Just wondering if you two agreeing was a sign that the Purgatory time-table got bumped up.”

“Oh, ha ha.”

Then there was the soccer mom that attacked Dean when he held the door for her while Sam was pumping the fuel he'd just bought. 

Sam was two lines into an exorcism when he realized Dean was having trouble because he was trying not to hurt her, not because she was a demon. It didn't matter. The spectacle of Dean squirming around while a woman who couldn't be more than 5'6 tried to climb him like a tree while her three kids looked on in shock was enough to distract anyone from Sam's new Pavlovian response to danger.

He was locking the nozzle back in place on the pump when Dean managed to reverse positions with the woman, putting her back to the locked glass door of the gas station. Sam blinked and Dean somehow teleported from the station to the driver's seat.

“IN.”

Sam quickly rounded the front of the car and didn't even have the door closed before Dean was speeding out of the station.

“Cas really needs to check his damn messages,” Dean said some time later.

Sam chanced a look and shrugged faintly. “She was hot, at least.”

Dean allowed himself a quick glare Sam's direction before he returned to the road. “Her _kids_ were watching Sam. Major boner killer, you know?”

Sam wanted to ask him how he'd justified making out with kids' moms after hunts in the old days, but he was fair enough to recognize the difference between a (mostly) chaste kiss and what had happened at the gas station, so he kept his mouth shut. 

They were flashed by no less than three different sets of women after leaving the gas station, and he was reasonably sure the girls in the last car couldn't have been a day over 19. Thankfully (for Sam's remaining moral sensibilities, if nothing else), they were in Louisville after that and they didn't have to worry about unintentionally witnessing anything illegal. 

Well. Anything out their ordinary realm of illegal.

Probably.

In town, Dean slowed to a few miles under the speed limit, eyes scanning the buildings around them. “What's the name of the paper that reporter works at?”

“The Front Page,” Sam replied, already looking for the building. The feature writer on the original piece had already done a lot of the leg-work, and they were hoping there might be additional clues in her notes that might be useful. The town paper had a section with short information on each of their reporters, and using that as a jump-off, it was easy enough to track her down. 

Sam was waffling between confident and nervous because she was...well, a _she_ , and Dean's record had been ridiculous lately. There was a good chance she'd give them everything she knew, if Sam could keep her off of his brother long enough for one of them to ask the questions. 

He took the lead when they entered the office for the Front Page, eyes drifting over the room in a risk assessment as well as an attempt to locate their mark. According to her Facebook, she was working late tonight.

“Marcia Bancroft?”

A blonde with her hair pulled up into a twist looked his way from the group of desks and Sam smiled. Her eyes narrowed faintly and Sam had a moment to begin reworking their plan to account for suspicions when her eyes drifted to the left and the tension in her face went slack.

Dean sighed.

Sam recognized the look from four of their last six encounters with women, and sighed. “Just tell her to give me her notes.”

“Huh?” Dean shifted his weight and they both watched Bancroft's eyes follow him dreamily. 

“Her notes, Dean,” Sam repeated. “She's useless like this, but I might still be able to get something from her notes.”

Dean shrugged and turned to Marcia with a thoughtful expression. “You're a good reporter, aren't you Marcia?” Bancroft nodded, mouth curling in response. “Great. My partner would love to see your notes from the Yarborough murder.”

Bancroft turned to her desk immediately, and her hands were on her keyboard before they paused. “...why?”

Dean frowned at him and Sam shrugged. Dean leaned forward, and Sam recognized the shift in his tone and the sudden ease of tension in his shoulders. Dean was pulling a con and happy about it. She was confused for a full 2 seconds before he realized the weird happenings over the last few days had been getting to him, and being forced to lie and cheat a woman out of her hard-won research was normal enough to be comforting.

 _What is our life?_ he wondered wryly as the printer hummed to life.

The notes were, in fact, exactly what they needed. Bancroft had left several details out of her story, though Sam wasn't sure whether that was because the initial case was so old or because she thought the details too traumatic. The first death on record was committed by a Myrtle Yarborough, a nurse-maid who was jealous of her mistress. She'd conceived a child by the woman's husband and been forced to abort it without her knowledge. The man was a headmaster and had evidently been having an affair with the nurse-maid for several years while she'd still been in school. 

The murder was proven and the reputations of all in question were shattered. Myrtle had managed to escape the transportation and hid until the first day of the new school year, when the headmaster was handing off leadership of the school to a less suspect man, at which point she shot herself in front of the entire school. 

It fit the MO, and explained the sliding dates. Private schools had different schedules, different start and end dates. Some followed different holidays...

Sam continued scanning the document until his eyes reached, _'...sent to GY (Everdine) – buried: paid for by FJC? Maybe Daddy had contacts? Some1 was bribed...'_

When he looked up, Dean was almost cringing, cheeks twitching with contained but aggressive confusion and denial. Bancroft was petting the gel out of his hair.

“We good?” he asked mildly, voice deceptively calm.

Sam nodded and resolved to hack their security feed later for a copy of their visit. 


	2. Part two: Dean's POV

Old cemeteries always gave Dean a hunted feeling, like someone was watching them just beyond their own perception. Considering the number of old graves and the potential for malingering after death, that was possible

Digging gave him something to focus on, something to accomplish. It helped ease the tight, itchy feeling of observation, distracted him from the new-old feeling that his skin was stretched too thin over his bones. Honestly, the feeling wasn't as strong as he'd felt it in the past. Not a heavy weight at all, really, but enough to notice for someone who'd been skin-crawling tense over the last 24 hours. 

Magic was the only explanation for it, really, Dean mused as he dug. He was good, but he'd never driven anyone temporarily insane with his bashful smile alone. They were definitely summoning Cas after this job. 

His muscles flexed as he continued to dig, flinging dirt up and over the lip of the desecrated grave until his shovel skidded over something more solid than the packed soil. The nose of Sam's shovel impacted a half beat behind his and they locked eyes automatically, Sam's crinkled faintly in accomplishment, then Dean drove his shovel down at a new angle, sinking into the loosened dirt beyond the side of the coffin.

Neither of them wanted to hack up a corpse with a shovel because the wood of the coffin had splintered. It stank and they usually had to ditch a good shovel. 

Sam hopped out first and Dean pried open the top half of the coffin with his shovel, jerking back in case there were any fresh coffin flies. The corpse was old, barely recognizable as female with the hair hidden. Dean tossed the shovel over the side and braced himself on the side of the grave, jumping up and getting a knee over the lip. 

Sam caught him by the elbow and helped him the rest of the way, and Dean finally, finally felt normal as he watched Sam shake salt into the coffin. He leaned down to grab the gas can and in the space it took to bend over, the temperature dropped enough for his breath to fog. He didn't have time to go for the shotgun laying a foot away. “Oh shit – ”

Dean hit a mausoleum two rows over and dropped to the ground, throat locked where the impact had flattened the air from his lungs. He scrambled to his feet just before he gasped in a ragged, raw breath automatically and used his newly reopened airways to take in gulps of oxygen while he vaulted the gravestones separating him from his brother.

Sam was doing a decent job of keeping Myrtle distracted, at least, so Dean scooped the shotgun up and tucked it under one arm, then began working the lid from the gas can. The brand they'd bought was apparently childproof and he winced as it went _clickclickclick_ when he tried to turn it without squeezing. 

The sound caught the spirit's attention, because of course it did: he could feel the weight of her hollow-eyed presence bearing down on him and dropped the can in favor of the shotgun. He turned toward her, bracing the shotgun as best as he could in the little prep-time he had and raised the muzzle. Unfortunately, she was too close to aim properly, but rocksalt scattered well enough. Dean pulled the trigger and watched her temporarily disperse from the side he'd hit out. 

He tossed Sam the shotgun immediately and ducked to scoop the gas-can up. “Where's yours?!”

“She knocked it that way like a fucking javelin,” Sam hissed, emptying the shell from the round Dean had fired and reloading. “In the trees somewhere, we'll get it later. Concentrate on the grave.”

Dean got the can open and was pouring the fume-ridden contents into the grave when he felt a tickle along the back of his neck, and then a scent...like gardenias and mulch.

_“You were made for the darkness...come to me...I must have you!”_

Dean rolled instinctively, shaking off a lassitude he hadn't realized was slowing his movement. He clipped a gravestone as the chill of ghostly fingers tore through him. “Sam!”

“You want me to shoot you in the face?! Uh, Myrtle! Hey, Myrtle! We burned your house down!” 

That managed to catch her attention. Dean didn't even pause to take a breath, shoving himself to his feet and darting to the abandoned gas-can. He had to collect it from where it had been flung in his escape from the ghost, about 10 meters from the erstwhile-final resting place of Myrtle Yarborough. 

He could hear Sam scuffling with the ghost as his fingers snagged the handle and he almost skidded out on the damp grass as he spun on his heel to make his way back. 

Sam was dodging a blow aimed at his head, holding the shovel like a talisman more than a weapon. Dean crossed one step closer, then another, and Myrtle wavered before she turned his way,like he'd called for her, rage-filled expression smoothed over and gone soft.

“You angel...come to me, this world is so cruel...it does not deserve you! We could be happy, you and I and our little ones...”

Dean dodged right and darted toward Sam, passing over the gas. “Switch!”

Sam took it without question and Dean turned and waved his arms. “Hey, Myrtle! Tell me more about the darkness!”

After that, the two hours long digging-and-fight was over in about five minutes. 

Dean had to wave the gun a few times to keep the specter back far enough not to ensnare him, but she seemed content to stare longingly for the moment, entreating Dean to let her kill him for their eternity together. 

Sam had no issues getting pouring the last of the gas and lighting a match. Myrtle didn't even look away from Dean as the flames started at the bottom of her long, shapeless dress. The look on her face was somewhere between need and longing, and Dean's gut sank as he looked into her empty eyes as the flames finished her. 

He watched the burning coffin for a long minute, flames licking up the side of the temporary walls, and then he could feel his jaw loosen and his lips part and he said, “Sam.”

Sam stood beside him, bruised but breathing easily. He turned his head a fraction. “Yeah?”

Dean blinked, whatever had moved him to speak gone. They stood quietly for a long moment before the sound of approaching sirens finally goaded movement. 

The familiar scent of the Impala grounded Dean even as his nerves kicked into gear observing traffic. It loosened his tongue. “I'm cursed.”

Sam sighed. “Looks like.”

A door slammed somewhere to the east of them and they bolted for the car.

 _Why do we always run so hard?_ Dean wondered. _It's almost worse running from the cops than having to escape from prison._

That was a dumb question and he knew it, so Dean didn't actually voice it out loud. _No need to stir up the heat again, Dean-o,_ he told himself silently, somehow bringing Gabriel's voice to mind. 

_Oh, no,_ he thought immediately, automatically ducking down under the hole he and Sam had cut into the chain-link fence earlier. _NOT calling Gabriel, no way, no how. If it really isn't that bastard's fault, he'd never let me hear the end of it._

They found Sam's shotgun with a little searching, and Dean found it had already managed to acquire sap somewhere, much to his displeasure. He shoved it and the shovel into the bag they'd stashed behind the fence in case they needed to make an emergency getaway, then waited for Sam to do the same before closing it and slinging it over one shoulder. 

They broke through the thinning tree-line onto the side of a suburban house and it only took Dean a moment to orient. The Impala was still parked where they'd left her about a block away and it was with great relief that Dean unlocked the driver's side and slid into the seat. He flipped Sam's lock, then tossed the bag onto the back seat floorboard. 

“I think we're good,” Sam muttered, checking behind them in the sideview. Dean shrugged and eased away from the curb, heading away from the cemetery a mile under the speed limit. 

Dean wanted to talk about...everything. The girls in the restaurant, the dudes at the bar, the soccer mom – it was all too weird, and then there was the ghost on top of it. 

Dean finally broke. “ _What the hell kind of curse am I under?_ ”

Sam winced. “I, uh...I don't know.”

Dean turned long enough to glare. “All that research and you don't even have a theory?”

Sam shrugged. “Well, I've got an idea of what it does, sort of. But I can't find anything that matches up with what I've seen.”

“What have you seen?” Dean asked lowly.

Sam looked briefly uncomfortable when Dean checked, but he spoke a moment after Dean put his eyes back on the road. “I think...well, whatever is affecting people, its strength is based on how likely they are to be attracted to you in the first place. It seems to overwhelm inhibitions...”

“Everyone that's hit on me would've given me a second look anyway, is what you're saying,” Dean said slowly. “And _Myrtle?_ ”

Sam drummed his fingers on the dashboard for a minute. “Well, you do look a bit like those pictures of Johnson from the newspaper.”

“Great,” Dean muttered. 

Sam let out an explosive sigh. “And the effect seems to strengthen with time and exposure

Dean jerked the wheel in his haste to catch Sam's wincing expression. “What do you mean, _strengthen with time?_ Like how long I'm exposed to these people, or...?” _God, don't let it be how long I'm under whatever it is..._

“I think that matters, yeah, but it also seems to be picking up steam...”

Sam cut himself off, eyes going to the sideview just as Dean heard the low first whoops of a siren, and the red strobes splashed against the dashboard. 

Brief hysteria had him considering making a run for it before he took a breath and pulled over. They could always ditch the motorcycle later if need-be. Dean rolled the window down even as he pulled over. “We're not done,” he whispered to Sam, leaning over and grabbing the fake wallet he was using from the dashboard and making sure nothing suspicious would be visible if he had to pull out the fake registration. 

The patrol officer wandered up, dark-blue uniform crisp enough to suggest he was looking for a promotion or had only recently graduated from the academy. Dean felt a small bit of his hope to get away die and tried to keep the dismay from his face. “Yes?”

Summoning an angel was risky when half the host and most of the demons were searching them out, but they were getting desperate before the counter-girl (definitely jail-bait) tried to swallow Dean's tongue. (Thankfully, the owner of the motel had witnessed the whole thing, including Dean's surprise and flailing attempt to disengage, and had decided she'd done it on a dare.) 

Dean angled for the motel office the second the Impala was locked up. “I'm serious, Sam. We're summoning Cas. You couldn't find anything and in the meanwhile, I had to fend off a _ghost_. A ghost named _Myrtle_ wanted me to _join her in the darkness_. I barely got away from that traffic cop without having to take one for the team! It's time to bring out the big guns.”

“I'm just saying that it might not be a good time,” Sam muttered, eyes moving over the small lobby area while Dean fed quarters into a vending machine. “There's got to be a reason they haven't been answering.”

“ _Myrtle,_ ” Dean repeated. Coke and Snickers bar in hand, Dean led the way back outside and along the sidewalk to their room. “We're summoning him.”

“How do you know he'll answer?” Sam scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Just. Think about it.”

“Good point,” Dean said slowly. “I guess we need to get a little more formal. What do we have for an altar?”

Gabriel was a reality for which no preparation could be made.

Amber eyes slid over the motel room and the makeshift altar before they returned to where Sam and Dean were standing. “Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb. Why am I not surprised?”

“What are you doing here?” Dean asked at the same time Castiel said, “Why have you summoned me?”

They all stared at each other for an awkward moment, Gabriel clearly the only one at any ease, and then Sam took a step forward. “Look, sorry guys. We actually summoned Cas because...well, Dean is cursed.” 

Dean sucked on his cheek and nodded when the angels looked at him as though to check Sam was serious.

Sam sighed. “I've looked everywhere and I can't get a fix on it. None of our standard methods will reveal what it is, exactly, and it's getting worse. It's probably good that you came too, Gabriel.”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Of course I tagged along. My baby bro here is the leader to the resistance and I didn't want him to chance answering a call only to find out it was a trap from our other douche-bag brother.”

Dean cocked his head. “Well maybe if one of you would return your messages...”

Gabe smirked. “Why, you need someone to carry your books for you, princess?”

Dean wavered between irritation and amusement for a moment before the relief of talking to someone besides Sam without worrying about getting jumped won out. “Why, is it a position you're looking to fill?”

Gabe's expression warmed faintly in response to the gentle riposte. “Name the position and I'll fill it, sweet cheeks.”

“Okaaay,” Sam cut in. “We appreciate you coming and we know you've got a lot going on upstairs. Could you just take a look and see if you can figure anything out?”

He was asking Cas, and Cas inclined his head once. Dean straightened his back and shoulders and tried not to be creeped out when Cas stared through him like he could see Dean's soul.

Well, he could actually see Dean's soul, and that was kind of the point of the exercise, but it didn't make it less creepy.

“There's...something,” Castiel murmured. “I'm not quite sure...brother?”

Gabriel shrugged and looked Dean over head to foot. His exam was more like being checked out rather than being X-rayed, at least.

“Huh. Will you look at that. I can safely say entropy was one of the last things I expected to see playing with your soul. I thought Dad had you dolls sealed off from that.”

Dean frowned. “Entropy?” 

Cas was looking at Gabriel now, eyes narrowing in immediate concern before they turned back on Dean with even greater intensity.

Gabriel shrugged, eyes narrow on Dean without actually focusing on any one part of him. “Chaos, entropy. Tricky stuff. There's always an element of it in magic: it's the spark that creates it, breaks down what should be definite into possibility. Mortals can devote themselves to a force that embodies it and gain a little influence, but this? Wow.”

Dean waited for more to come, but Gabriel was silent long enough that his jaw ached with the tension. “What. About it.”

Gabriel's mouth twitched in the smallest of smirks, but he shrugged and met Dean's eyes finally. “Nothing really, just curious what you boys have been up to that ended up with chaos nibbling at your soul.”

Dean sighed. “Nothing out of the ordinary...”

Gabe arched a brow. “ _Really._ ” 

“Really,” Sam offered. “We haven't even had a job with a witch involved in a month.”

“Great. I guess we can just go home then, because obviously nothing is wrong.”

Dean forced himself to let the anger go. “We don't know, OK? Do you know how I can fix it?”

Gabriel cocked a brow. “I'm not actually that invested in you, kiddo...” 

Cas looked at him sharply. “Gabriel--”

“Uhp, uhp!” Gabriel held up a hand and Cas fell silent, though maybe not willingly. Then he turned those hunter yellow eyes on Dean, intent as they were, and pinned him in place with the look. “What's it bother me if you get a little extra attention?” 

Dean sighed explosively. “Seriously? Are we not helping with your damn war? Are we not helping with the demons? I'm no good _to anyone_ if I can't back people up because some _civilian_ is trying to climb me like a tree.

Gabriel observed him for a long minute, and his expression shifted from thoughtful to something more intent. He looked at Dean like he was hiding something and Gabriel wanted in on the secret. “Fine.” 

Dean stood there for a long, tense moment and watched Gabriel's expression shift gradually into something that almost seemed wary. He braced for the bad news. 

Gabriel reached into a pocket and pulled out a pack of Twizzlers. “I need a closer look.”

“...Jesus,” Dean gasped. “Really?”

Gabriel smirked, lips almost as red as the candy rope he was sucking on absently. “You owe me.”

Dean rolled his eyes and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Whatever.”

“OK. Get naked.”

“ _What?_ ”

Gabriel shrugged, but his eyes were definitely crinkled in a familiar expression. “Yep, gotta get an uninfluenced look at you, or as good as I can get. Lose the talismans and that amulet. I'm already going to have to filter out a lot of white noise from that Enochian _someone_ carved onto your ribs.”

Dean stared and Gabriel arched an eyebrow. “What? You think I'd go through something this elaborate to get you naked?”

That was actually a good point until he added, “Don't forget I could pop in on you in the shower whenever I wanted, and you wouldn't have to know about it, sweet cheeks.”

“Oh...god,” Dean muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Why would you say that?”

Gabe shrugged. “Maybe I'm looking for a show next time.”

“Just...shut up,” Dean muttered, then turned his head deliberately toward Cas and Sam. “You really don't need to be here for this, right? This isn't a mysterious ritual that needs four people and mountain ash sanctified by the guru of the hidden desert?”

Cas frowned. “I'm not familiar with _any_ ritual that requires--” 

“Nah, it's pretty basic to start with,” Gabe interrupted, then paused to take an obnoxiously loud slurp of soda from his bendy straw before he continued. “Just get naked and I'll make visible all of the mystical attachments you've acquired. Should be fun, what with the remnants of your deal and the whole Righteous Man identity hanging around. Sam could probably stay, but Cas definitely has to leave.” 

Castiel frowned and Gabriel cocked his head. “Sorry, bro, I know you get jealous of your man and all, but I might not be able to pull what's attached to him out of what's coming off of you from your little memento from Hellsville.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “OK, great, fine. Cas, take Sam and we can get this over with.”

“I'm not really sure it's a great idea to leave you two alone,” Sam said slowly, eyes drifting over the two of them.

“Oh, for the love of – ”

The sharp clap of a good snap sounded and Sam and Cas were gone. Dean couldn't bring himself to be upset. “Where are they?”

“Well, I was tempted to send them to the daycare with the highest percentage of celebutant children to let them exercise their maternal needs,” Gabriel admitted. “But I generally like Cassie too much to do that to him, and there's the potential for long term trauma. They're at the salvage yard.”

“Good enough,” Dean muttered, and then gripped the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head and then his hands stilled, hovering over the buckle on his belt. “You sure I gotta get...uh, _naked_ naked?”

Gabe grunted and snapped again, eyes narrowing. “Lets get this show on the road.”

Dean shivered, the air feeling cooler than it probably was for the abrupt displacement of his jeans. “Dude! Boundaries!”

“I burn for you, baby. What can I say? I was overcome.” Gabriel pursed his lips and smiled, eyes drifting over Dean with deliberate intention, giving the suggestion of hands and tongues. 

Dean snorted. “Right. Too bad for you I don't put out on the first date.”

“Too bad for your recent admirers, hm?” Gabe muttered as his focus shifted, half a smirk quirking his mouth even as the more salacious tease went out of his demeanor while his eyes drifted slowly over Dean's chest. 

Gabriel's expression wasn't quite appreciation, but it also wasn't exactly clinical and Dean sighed when the old intrigue waved a tentative tendril from the depths of his mind, and the equally worn out resignation countered it. _He thinks I'm a dick who got his brother killed. This is a favor, not a signal._

“Hm...” Gabriel frowned, stepping closer and twirling two fingers around. 

“What is it?” Dean obligingly turned, craning his head around to keep Gabe in sight.

“You were injured,” Gabriel murmured, pressing his fingers to Dean's back high and to the left.

Dean frowned. “Nothing big. A poltergeist threw me through a screen door onto a concrete porch and I got scraped up a bit. Sam disinfected it and we called it good.”

“Sam, huh...” Gabriel muttered.

Dean flinched as Gabriel's palm settled over the place he'd been injured, warm and thrumming with the same energy that almost always tingled on Dean's lips around the archangel. 

“Oh, boy, I'm gonna kill those clowns,” Gabriel muttered.

Dean tried to focus, but he felt like he was halfway through a bottle of hundred-proof Jack without the negative parts. His head was disconnected from the issues of his daily life, and a pleasant langor was unfolding through his limbs in warm waves. It was obviously an outside effect brought on from whatever Gabriel was doing, though Dean couldn't guess why he'd make Dean feel like this. “Gabe...?”

“Oh yeah. Death, after a few weeks of living in the most banal reality television I can conjure up,” Gabriel repeated.

Dean tried to turn, recognizing enough to know that was probably bad for his brother, and then he found himself flat on his back on a mattress, staring up at a ceiling that was a different shade of white from the room he'd just been in. Gabriel's palm was a warm weight over Dean's heart now, rather than his back, and Dean found himself smiling at the archangel completely without his own permission. “What's going on?”

Gabriel cocked his head, brown eyes staring intently down at Dean. “Our brothers tried to play matchmaker.”

Dean blinked. “I don't really follow, man. I'm feeling...kind of high, honestly. Sorry.”

“High isn't the only thing you're feeling, I bet...” Gabe said with a wry twist of his mouth, and he leaned forward just a little. 

Dean's eyes slid closed as the fabric of Gabriel's jeans rubbed over the sensitive skin of his thighs, a soft moan slipping from him as the heat in his blood rose higher.

“Yeah, that's what I thought,” Gabriel muttered.

“What...what's going on? This is a spell?” Dean asked, trying to focus through the pleasure.

“Unless you spread your legs for every archangel that comes a'calling, Deano,” Gabe replied, tapping Dean's hip meaningfully.

Dean managed to work up a hazy kind of shame through the buzz and looked away. “Sorry...I guess Sam knew...didn't mean to drag you into anything else...”

Gabe sighed. “I'm already fighting a war for you, kiddo,” he muttered. “And this is what you pick to feel embarrassed about?”

Dean closed his eyes. “If you win the war, you get to keep the world.”

Gabriel was silent for a long moment, and then his thumb began moving over Dean's hip. “Self-loathing isn't attractive to anyone over 15, Winchester.”

Dean sighed softly, eyes cracking back open. “Hard to feel bad at all right now...”

Gabe snorted and shifted back, raising his hand from Dean's hip to drag it through his hair. “Yeah, about that. I guess I should explain.”

Dean looked at him for a long moment and then found himself reaching out, drawing his fingers over the furrow in Gabriel's brow and down the side of his cheek. Something he knew he didn't normally do but couldn't quite remember why he resisted. 

“Hoo boy, are you going to be happy later,” Gabriel muttered, gently lifting Dean's hand from his face. “OK, from what I can tell, someone took a thread of chaos magic and braided it into your soul. The trouble - outside of the fact that chaos is something you can't, you know, predict - comes from the fact that it was dedicated to...well, Loki.”

“Loki? You mean you,” Dean muttered. Gabriel shrugged. “OK, so...what does that mean, exactly? And how did it cause all of this?”

Gabriel's jaw tightened. “As Loki, I _embody_ chaos and impulse. _The_ Trickster, remember?” 

Dean nodded shallowly, eyes focused on Gabriel's uncharacteristically solemn expression. 

“Right, well, unfortunately for you, I'm not just a Trickster. I'm an archangel.”

“How's that make people want to bone me?” Dean asked curiously.

Gabe snorted. “That cocktail lowers inhibitions and sends out a signal that says divine to everyone in the area.”

“I'm not following,” Dean admitted, shifting a little with the erstwhile intention of getting more comfortable. From Gabe's briefly narrow stare, he didn't miss the tremble that passed throguh Dean's body in response to the scrape of Gabe's legs against his still-naked thighs.

“You monkeys can ignore the lack of Grace in your lives, but that doesn't mean there isn't part of you missing it.”

Dean nodded slowly. “Can you fix it?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Yeah, I just need to unwind the threads. It'll probably be uncomfortable for you, especially later. I know how much you hate intimacy.”

Dean shrugged. “Just do it.”

“What was that about not putting out on the first date?” Gabe asked, and pressed two fingers to Dean's forehead before he could reply.

Dean was drowning in everything he'd ever thought or felt about Gabriel in one long instant, _Trickster Loki admiration grief Gabriel rage sympathy regret desire shame anger needneedneed_ and then the real deal was there, inexorable and permanent and shining, though only with a sliver of his power because any more would hollow Dean out.

Dean was too overwhelmed to compartmentalize and repress, was beyond any restraint as Gabriel slipped in and began spreading fingers inside of Dean's head, seeking the connection that had accidentally been forged.

Dean was _thirsty_ , he _wanted_ , and he pulled Gabriel deep, opened himself wide in offering and demand: he'd been _made_ for this, he was empty and waiting and capable of taking the grace of an archangel and if there was ever one he would've said yes to, one he'd honestly _wanted_ to say yes to, it was the one in him right now. 

Dean couldn't hide the need from him, nor the anger that he'd never asked, the regret that he'd never been good enough for Gabriel – 

Then it was over, and everything was sore, everything ached in both the best and worst way, like a sex marathon that had left him with strained muscles in every major group and the vaguest fear that someone would know what he'd done, would read it written on his skin –

“Oh, shit,” Dean whispered, eyes flying open as he realized how much he'd just given away, how much he'd ordered Gabriel to take. 

Gabriel was standing by the bed, and they were still in the room he'd brought them to. He was staring down at Dean, expression unreadable. 

Dean opened his mouth to apologize and found the words quailed under the blank stare. He looked down instead, cheeks hot with embarrassment.

“It's done. You need to sleep it off.”

Dean didn't think that would be possible, but Gabriel tapped his forehead and everything went dark. 

They didn't talk about it. Sam had tried to apologize once, and Dean had nearly socked him one before he shut it down. 

Things were mostly back to normal now. They'd taken care of a demon pastor in New England, managing to stay off the radar for once, and were heading out of town to keep it that way. 

Sam was scanning copies of newspapers he'd saved while they had the motel's free wifi. “Pittsburgh might have something.”

“A bigger town?” Dean mulled that over. There was a greater chance to be recognized, but he was slowly worrying less about that as time passed. And a big town might be what he needed. “Yeah, OK. We'll check it out. The bar scene should be good for some cash, and maybe a little extra.”

Sam looked like he wanted to say something, but ultimately held his tongue.

Dean bumped up the radio and hung his arm out of the window. 

_It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son.  
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no..._

They decided to do their research in a suburb and move in when they had the best cover stories picked out. Dean thought about it for about ten seconds, then grabbed his jacket.

“You're really going out?” Sam asked quickly, then seemed surprised he'd actually spoken.

That expression was pretty hilarious and Dean figured that was the only reason he answered. “Yeah, I think it's time I get back in the swing of things. Better now than on the job, right? I can't let seven negative experiences keep me from trying to connect with people, right?”

“I...guess,” Sam said, nodding slowly. “That's actually kind of...healthy. For you, at least. You feeling OK, Dean?”

Dean pulled the door open. “Don't wait up.”

The bar was a shit hole with terrible music and worse drinks, which was perfect for Dean's purpose because they were cheap and meant nobody was hear to stay.

The blonde at the bar made that blatantly obvious when Dean toed up beside her and she turned, eyes taking Dean in very quickly. Her mouth stretched up immediately in a predatory smile. “My name's Robin.”

“Heineken,” Dean told the bartender, a middle-aged man with mildly defined arms and a small gut, and then turned to the woman. “Dean.”

“Starting slow, Dean?” Robin asked, lips wrapping around the straw of what looked like a Long Island Iced Tea.

Dean looked her over and thought about the prospects he'd seen on his initial sweep of the bar. She was probably the likeliest candidate for a drama-free night. “I'm a distance runner, not a sprinter.”

Her eyes crinkled with appreciation. “That's good to know.”

Twenty minutes later they were behind the bar and Dean could feel rough brick through his t-shirt because he'd stupidly left his jacket inside. Robyn – with a 'y,' she'd informed him – was mouthing his jaw with a tease of teeth, one hand on his side working under the hem of his shirt, and the other holding Dean's shoulder for balance.

It felt good. Shallow, but that was what he needed. In and out, one hand in hair gone sticky from sweat and hairspray and the other stroking Robyn-with-a-y's back, from the base of her spine to her shoulder and then slipping his thumb under the thin strap of her tank top and under her bra strap, rubbing the faint groove there gently.

Her breath sighed over his mouth as she turned her head up for a kiss, which he obliged. The remnants over long island covered whatever meal she'd had last and Dean liked the faint moan she left out.

Instinct told him something changed and Dean casually shifted both hands to Robyn's shoulders automatically, ready to shove her toward the door. He opened his eyes easily, trying not to give away his identity as a hunter if it was some random monster looking for dinner, and not willing to scare Robyn away on the chance that it was just some aggressive frat boy who was angry over getting kicked out of the bar.

_Gabriel?_

A snap later, Robyn was nowhere to be seen. “What the...?”

Gabriel stared at him for a minute and Dean shifted. “What, was she a demon or like, an Egyptian spit vampire or something?”

“Those died out a couple centuries ago,” Gabriel replied, breaking the stare off between them to look at the door to the bar and then back. “We need to talk.”

Dean's stomach clenched. They hadn't been alone since Gabriel had lifted the accidental-curse. Gabriel had literally been by once, to update them on Raphael's deal with Crowley, which Dean was still trying to wrap his brain around. “I need to get my coat – ”

Gabriel rolled his eyes and snapped. The hotel room was the same one from before, though Dean hadn't had much chance to look around the last time he'd been there. He found his jacket draped over the back of a bar chair when he looked around, much nicer than the one it had been left on when Dean had stepped outside with Robyn. There was a high table as well, and cake? “What's going on? The girl?”

Gabriel stared at the cake for a minute, then pulled a plate forward with a perfectly cut slice, chocolate layered with chocolate and fudge icing. “Home with a buzz to rival a B-52. She'll wake up with a hangover and no memory of the handsome, green-eyed stranger who almost broke her heart.”

Dean snorted. “That was all her. From how quick she was to bite, I'm gonna say her heart was never in danger.”

Gabe shrugged. “Sit down, take a load off. We'll be here a while.”

Dean looked around again, noting the door to the far left of the room that could have been a bathroom, and another that had a deadbolt which he assumed meant it was a door to an outside somewhere. “Didn't think hotels liked having deadbolts.”

Gabriel took another bite and shuffled the food in his mouth to speak. “This is my hotel.”

“Ah.” Dean sat quietly watching Gabriel eat for another two seconds before his eyes slid to the cake. “Hey, could I – ”

A slightly smaller piece of cake appeared on a small clear plate in front of him, with a plastic fork sticking out of it. “Thanks.”

Gabriel grunted and kept eating. Dean shrugged and took a bite.

Gabriel smirked at the startled sound of pleasure Dean made. “I call this recipe Mouthgasm.”

Dean could only nod, still a bit blindsided by the intensity of the flavor. 

Gabriel scraped the plate thoughtfully, watching Dean resume eating with more caution now, still smirking even around his fork as Dean started shifting uncomfortably. He waited for Dean's last bite to resume.

“I don't share, and your ass is mine after all the shit I do for you. The _only_ person I'd be willing to let tap is Cas, and he's about as disconnected from his sexuality as the Republican national party is from people that don't watch Fox, which explains how we got here in the first place.”

“I'm...huh?” Dean slowly set his plate down, wondering if you could make 'special' cake like you could brownies. _Am I high?_

Gabriel leaned over and Dean tensed as his hand approached. He grabbed Gabriel's hand as it rose and found himself backed into a corner that hadn't been behind him a moment ago. “Gabriel?”

Gabriel was a wall in front of him, immobile. “Have you ever felt somebody's soul say your name?”

“Uh, no...” Dean drew out slowly.

“It's wild.” Gabriel set his free hand on Dean's chest and leaned forward. 

“Are you really going to kiss me?” Dean asked, and then Gabriel's mouth was on his. He landed just faintly off-center, his lips soft against Dean's, and he dragged his mouth over Dean's. Foreign stubble rasped against his own and Dean's lips parted automatically. He stiffened under Gabriel's hand, and for all that the angel was capable of keeping him exactly where he wanted him, there was no real pressure, no genuine force behind the weight against his heart.

 _Oh...fuck it,_ Dean thought. _Enjoy it while it lasts._

Gabriel's hands were everywhere after that, and Dean let him force his overshirt off manually in favor of stroking his hair back from his face and burying his hands in the soft mass, deceptive curls teasing the sensitive backs of his fingers. The incongruous stubble grew less so after a moment, and Dean could focus on the texture of Gabriel's mouth and gently sucking on the seam, coaxing. 

Gabriel smirked and pulled back to meet Dean's eyes. “You in?”

The amber-brown eyes were no different than they'd been when Dean had thought him a handsome janitor, but there was a weight to him now that hadn't existed then. For a moment, Dean was standing before something staggeringly large – bigger than buildings, maybe bigger than a city – with the kind of energy that could power the sun, and all of the will and determination that managed to squeeze that kind of power into human packaging was humming with want for Dean, was almost vibrating in place with want, and Dean was dry-mouthed and knee-shaking with the strength of his own lust. “Yeah,” he rasped, and was on the recently-familiar bed, naked once more and lain out flat on his back. 

At least Gabriel was naked this time. He settled on Dean, legs spreading wide around Dean's hips, and Dean hissed when his cock brushed Dean's as he got comfortable. 

“There are some benefits to being with an angel, kiddo,” Gabriel murmured. “Besides the obvious, of course. Want to see?”

Dean only hesitated a moment before shrugging. 

Gabriel surged through him along every point they touched, and each different contact felt like a small, pleasurable shock. Dean gasped, back bowing in startled pleasure. It was being full, fuller than his body on its own could ever be, full _enough_ for the first time in his life. There was pleasure and Gabriel, and for a time, that was _all_ there was. 

Touches whispered like mouths along his skin, with little hints of something sharper, and Dean was rocking up into Gabriel, moaning, “Fuck me, fucking fuck me.”

“Shh, I'll take you there,” Gabriel said. Dean tried to slow down for him and twisted his head away when he realized he couldn't. Gabriel clasped his hip and held him down. “I've got you.”

“Ga – Gabriel,” Dean panted, squeezing his shoulder and stroking his neck with the other. His belly was damp where the head of his cock had smeared pre-cum. 

“Yeah, baby,” Gabriel muttered. “I know. You try to hide it but everyone knows.”

Dean twisted his hand in Gabe's hair and _pulled_. “Fuck you.”

“Maybe next time, Winchester. Let’s work up to the big leagues.” Gabriel grinned, rubbing his thumb over Dean's hip, pressing the crescent of his nail firmly into the skin. 

Dean took a deep breath and stroked down over Gabriel's back and then reached between their legs. Gabriel hummed appreciatively when Dean wrapped his hand around both of them. 

“Little tighter, hm? Ah, yeah. That’s my boy.”

Dean tugged him down by the hair and bit his way into his mouth, pulling on them both and fingering their slick heads. It felt amazing. He was still lit up all over where they touched, like tongues licking into him in the sweetest buzz, and it was good, better, _great_ with every short tug. He twisted his wrist and his palm picked up some of the slick leaking between them, easing the rough edge from his calluses. 

Gabriel pulled back and dropped his head to Dean’s shoulder, panting softly, and rasped, “You _are_ good at this.”

Dean snorted, unable to work up much amusement when Gabriel’s hoarse voice made his cock leap. “More practice than you might think.” He admitted, turning his head to press his mouth behind Gabriel’s ear. “Not always the easiest lay in town.”

“Easy is the last word I’d use.” Gabriel snorted and Dean squirmed when his breath washed hot and damp over his neck and then Gabriel shifted his weight and wrapped his hand around Dean's. 

Dean gasped, head slamming back into the mattress as Gabriel's touch doubled an already intense sensation where their cocks pressed together.

“There we go,” Gabriel murmured. “Come on, Dean. Take us down together. A little more...you've got great hands...”

Dean came, then. His orgasm was somehow both a lightning strike as well as a wave of pleasure built up slowly in a crescendo of light that buoyed him over the edge – both of them. Gabriel was panting into his neck when the intensity began to abate, and the crackling feel of him seemed to have muted, thankfully. “Wow.”

“You aren't wrong,” Gabriel replied. They lay like that for a while and Dean waffled between a languor that couldn't be denied and the rest of the world. The war, the demons, and all of the other monsters had and Sam had to watch up for. 

Gabriel rubbed his jaw over Dean's shoulder, the faint rasp of stubble still a surprise, and scooted back high enough to stare into Dean's eyes. “What do you want from this? Thank carefully.”

 _Your ass is mine,_ Dean remembered him saying, and sighed. “I’m not – I can’t promise –”

“I know,” Gabriel said. “What you want and what you can guarantee are often very different things.” 

Dean nodded slowly. “What about you? You have to know I won't be boyfriend of the year material.”

Gabriel shrugged. “I did my thinking upstairs and I’m here now. If you're a dick, I'll just paint the Impala different shades of pink.”

“Touch my car and you're dead,” Dean growled before he caught up with the sentence. “So it’s…this is cool? We’ll probably never get time together.”

Gabe squeezed Dean's shoulder. “I can bend the time-stream to create alternate realities. If I want to talk to you, we'll find a way.”

He wanted to clarify that, because nobody had ever – nobody, literally, had ever thought _Dean_ was enough to compromise like that. And Gabriel definitely still had issues with how fucked up Sam and Dean were about each other.

Dean swallowed. “You know Sam’s always going to come first.”

Gabriel smirked. “Maybe not _always._ ”

Dean groaned, pulling a pillow over his face. “I changed my mind. Get the hell away from me.”

Gabriel stroked a lazy hand over Dean’s waist. “No take backs.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Debriel Mini-bang](http://debriel-mini.livejournal.com/), on LJ. [Art generously done by Raths_Kitten.](http://raths-kitten.livejournal.com/1132967.html)


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